


Beware, My Lord, of Jealousy

by rumpelsnorcack



Category: Lovely Little Losers
Genre: Angst, Jealousy, M/M, Not Happy, implied possible future relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 20:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5219705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rumpelsnorcack/pseuds/rumpelsnorcack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter's thoughts as he wakes up the day after Balthazar's birthday party</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beware, My Lord, of Jealousy

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something I wrote to help me figure out what may have been going on in the post-party situation. Plus, I miss seeing Peter, and his PoV is missing ...
> 
> Many thanks to Mollywheezy for the encouragement and speedy beta. Rated teen, again for language.

Peter slit open his eyelids, then immediately slammed them shut again.  Even the dim light through his curtains was enough to burn his aching eyes.  He tried again, squinting at the walls of the room before rolling over to check the time. 

Peter regretted it at once, as the movement jiggled his stomach and reminded him why his eyes were so tender.  He also became aware of an unpleasant throbbing in his head.  His stomach churned and he leaned over the edge of the bed to retch into a nearby bowl.  Peter thanked whatever deity might be listening that there wasn’t enough bile left in his stomach to come out.  He lay back, being careful not to upset his roiling stomach, and tried to take in his surroundings.

First, there was no John in his room.  The mattress they had squeezed into the corner was neatly tucked in, with the sheets and blanket unrumpled.  In fact, it looked as if John might not have used it at all last night.  Peter groaned and fell back with his hand over his eyes.  Was there no end to the shitty things he was going to do to his brother?  Keeping him from a semi-decent bed was just the latest in a long list.

Peter opened his eyes again, attempting to get up; he was cautious not to move too fast in case he hurt his eyes even more.  He grimaced.  Getting up was apparently going to take much more effort than it had done even yesterday.  He’d forgotten how hard it was to force himself out of bed with a hangover.  Peter sat up carefully, with his head swimming but thankfully no return of the nausea.  His feet hit something cold and he glanced down, startled by the loud clang of metal against his bare ankle.  Someone had set up a bowl next to the bed in a neat line along with a glass of water and a slide of Panadol.  

Peter smiled to himself.  Balthy was at his old tricks again, then.  He gave a fond snort, imagining the scene, before realisation hit him.

Fuck.

No.

Not Balthy.

Balth had left the party.  With someone else. The memory sent a lance of pain through Peter’s body and he groaned again.  He didn’t feel in any fit state to deal with this.

Even so, the memories flooded back.  Particularly painful were those where Balthy had been so reticent with him last night.  It was as if he’d deliberately built a barrier between them.  Peter had thought, hoped, that something might happen with the rules set aside for the night.  There  _had_  been that hug, where Balthy had squeezed him so tight, and Peter had thought  _maybe_  something might come of it.  But the moment died and nothing happened.  Then, with every further approach, Balthy had become so much more distant.  By the end of the evening they had ended up on opposite sides of the party and Balth had been all up in some other guy’s business.

Peter squeezed his eyes shut against the unbidden picture of the guy who had spent the evening sidling up close to Balthazar, his eyes intense as they talked.  He tried to push away the picture of the familiar way the bloke had placed his hands on Balth’s shoulder as they leaned in towards each other, clearly fascinated by the conversation.  He fought against remembering the light in Balthazar’s eyes when he’d placed his hand on the other guy’s arm as they chatted.

Fuck.  Peter didn’t even know the guy’s name, and he was jealous as hell of him.  Swamped, overwhelmed, drowned in jealousy.  Sunk so deep in jealousy Peter didn’t think he could ever swim to the surface again.  He mentally cursed the stupid cute guy with his stupid cute beard thing.  What did he have that had caught Balth’s attention?  What had made him so much more attractive than Peter?

Peter scrubbed his hands over his eyes, trying to block out the thoughts.  But one phrase kept intruding – repeating over and over in his mind.

_Not if it’s like a casual thing, no._

Thump. The insistent hammering of the words.

_Not if it’s like a casual thing, no._

Thump. The mocking cadences of Balthy’s voice, over and over.

_Not if it’s like a casual thing, no._

Balth had said he didn’t do casual relationships.  It was his reason for aborting their kiss what now seemed like an eternity ago.

So that left just two options. 

Balth either saw the other guy as something not-casual.  Or he was lying to Peter and that had been an excuse to turn him down.  Pain stabbed through Peter at both thoughts.  He winced, feeling the cold heat of loss cascading through him.  He couldn’t even work out which one was worse: that Balth was finding something special with some not-Peter someone, or that Peter meant so little to Balthazar that he’d rather hook up with some random guy than try for _something_ with Peter.  That he meant so little that Balthazar had been happy to lie to get out of the situation. 

He shuddered as he thought about Balth’s eyes that day.  He’d looked so genuine, so how could it have been a lie?  Peter had been so ashamed of what had happened, of how he’d pushed and in that pushing pushed Balth away.  He'd hated how he hadn’t been able to conjure the right words to convince Balth to stay and talk it through.  Peter had been ashamed of how badly he had fucked up.  And yet … now it seemed that no words would have been enough, nothing Peter could have done would have made any difference.  Because Balth didn’t care enough.  All that worry – all for nothing?   Nope, Peter realised; that one was  _definitely_  worse.  His heart felt numb in his chest, and he could feel his hands shaking as he thought about that day.

Peter found himself curled up in a corner of his bed.  He pressed his lips together, in a vain attempt to suppress all the emotions that were swirling around in his head.  He refused to cry; that wasn’t an option, but he was damned if he was going to get up and face everyone else.  Peter was sure there would be pity, and he knew that pity would just ruin his carefully controlled not-crying, particularly any pity from Balth.  So, the very best thing Peter could do was try to go back to sleep and hope that when he woke, this nightmare would be over or that he’d have magically stopped feeling this shitty about it.

Peter pulled the covers over his head and tried to block out everything that had happened.  It didn’t help, and the vicious thoughts continued to swarm around him until he fell into welcome oblivion again.


End file.
